The week ahead in traffic, transit

Travelers should look for rain on Tuesday and a generally cooler week. There are games or events at Verizon Center each night, which is likely to cause congestion around Gallery Place late in the evening rush. But the big sports event is Monday night football at FedEx Field. There's a little more off-peak work to be done on Ohio Drive. See that and more about what's ahead.

Ohio Drive
Commuters should find Ohio Drive and Independence Avenue open today following weekend work that involved the final placement of asphalt and road markings on Ohio Drive. There's more work ahead overnight and on the weekend.

# Monday, November 15, through Thursday, November 18, (7pm to 5:30am): Ohio Drive from 23rd Street to Independence Avenue/Rock Creek Parkway will need to be closed one or two nights to install raised pavement markers.This work is tentatively scheduled for Wednesday, November 17 or Thursday, November 18.

The weekend: From 11 p.m. Friday to 5:30 a.m. Monday, Ohio Drive will be closed between 23rd Street and Independence Avenue/Rock Creek Parkway to complete final paving and striping.

During the total roadway closure on Saturday, November 20, all traffic on westbound Independence Avenue will be detoured onto 17th Street, and traffic on southbound Rock Creek Parkway will be detoured onto Virginia Avenue.

Once the asphalt has cured traffic on westbound Independence Avenue, traffic will be detoured at 23rd Street and the southbound Rock Creek Parkway traffic will be able to use the ramp to the Memorial Bridge into Virginia. Traffic should be able to use those intersections sometime late Saturday evening. On Sunday, the intersections will remain open during the striping operation.

17th Street project
The National Park Service is about to begin another project near the Mall, which will result in temporary road closings on 17th Street NW near Constitution Avenue. In the next few weeks, the park service will start building a levee just south of Constitution Avenue to prevent flooding in the area.

Beltway/Telegraph Road
A new access ramp should be providing a smoother and safer route onto the Beltway's inner loop, according to the Wilson Bridge project, which is rebuilding the interchange at Telegraph Road.

Next weekend: The outer loop will be narrowed to one through lane overnight on Friday, through Saturday afternoon. Project officials say that significant delays are likely on the Beltway.

Redskins play Monday night
The Redskins play the Eagles at FedEx Field at 8:30 p.m. Monday. See our tips for getting to FedEx.

Metrorail will stay open an extra hour, until 1 a.m. Tuesday, to take fans home. (The Redskins pay for that.) The last Blue Line train headed toward Franconia-Springfield will leave Largo Town Center at 12:24 a.m. and Morgan Boulevard at 12:27 a.m. If the game goes into overtime, trains will be available. Metro will add trains at the end of the game.

Fans who park at Morgan Boulevard or Largo Town Center will have to pay $25 using a SmarTrip card when they exit the parking areas. Cash is not accepted. Paid parking at these two stations begins three hours before kickoff, and continues two hours after the game.

Arlington road work
This weekend, look for road work on South 12th Street between South Clark Street and Crystal Drive from midnight to 9 p.m.Saturday and from 7:30 a.m. to 9 p.m Sunday. South 12th Street will be closed to traffic. A crane will be occupying both the east and west bound traffic lanes on South 12th Street to hoist material to the roof of Crystal Gateway 2 & 4.

Tysons traffic
The two left-turn lanes from northbound Chain Bridge Road (Route 123) to westbound Tysons Boulevard have been closed for several months for pier construction. Those lanes are scheduled to reopen before the holiday shopping season.

While it doesn't affect me, the parking at Largo Town Center and Morgan Boulevard has me curious: Does this mean a regular commuter who gets stuck working late gets hit for $25 upon his return to his car? I see the statement "[p]aid parking at these two stations begins three hours before kickoff ...." Does that mean they have some way of segregating the vehicles that were already parked from the football parkers?

I have read Dr. Gridlock since its inception. However I've pretty much stopped reading it now. Preoccupation with all things Metro and bicycling to the virtual exclusion of traffic issues as well as having to search each page of the local section for to find it on thursday make it of little interest to me.

It's true that there used to be too little discussions about metro, bicycling, etc. but clearly now, it has gone to the other extreme.

How the color of subway seats, bicyclyst etiquette, and other minutiae raises itself to the level of the considerable number of vehicle related problems is beyond me.

Perhaps you should Create a new column "Nurse Metro" so that we could select the column appropriate to us.

From Dr. Gridlock for 1995hoo: I saw your question and checked with Metro spokesman Steven Taubenkibel. He says the parking payment plan applies only to people who park their cars at those stations and walk to the stadium.

Someone coming from, say, Metro Center by Blue Line to pick up their car won't be charged the $25. The SmarTrip card would be able to detect that and deduct only the normal parking fee, not the football fee.

Traffic on Rock Creek Park last night was horrible - and today there wasn't a sign on Connecticut warning drivers that the connecting road to Rock Creek Park just after the zoo was closed - at the end of the road - which meant a HUGE backup 40 minutes in length as drivers had to do a U turn and come back out to Connecticut Ave. When will all lanes and connecting spots re-open on Rock Creek - should I risk taking Rock Creek on my rainy commute home tonight?

Solangedc, I wouldn't take the chance on Rock Creek Pkwy tonight. I live in the affected area, and traffic going onto Cathedral Avenue was horrible this morning. Factor in the rain today, and the commute on Rock Creek is sure to be worse. Why isn't there any information on WaPo informing commuters of this construction? I'd like to know when it will end.

I'll note the are no articles about biking today or for a week, now but . . .

It's likely that the dearth of articles on driving reflect the fact that options to fix the problems are limited. Congestion is a function of too many cars for the road capacity. Increasing capacity means more roads, which are controversial and take a long time in any event. So the articles tend to be about things people can actually do something about, like slugging or adding rail cars, or about specific and discrete problems like a construction zone. Articles day after day about how bad congestion was today would get pretty tedious.

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